“I have believed it all along,” said Antrim.
“I know; I know you have. As you say, I don’t see how we are to accomplish anything by talking it over again to-night, but this I have determined: when we have sifted it down to the last grain of evidence, I shall go to the Governor and get him reprieved, if one man may, with God’s help, move another to do a little deed of mercy.”
“God bless you!” said Antrim fervently; and then: “After it’s all over I wish you would drive by and give the facts to the train despatcher upstairs—Disbrow, you know. He’ll wire them to me on Seventeen and I sha’n’t sleep much till I hear.”
The judge promised, and a moment later caught sight of Hobart in the stream of outcoming passengers from the delayed train. There was no time sacrificed to the formalities, and when the assayer had shaken hands with an old friend and a new one, the judge passed quickly to the matter in hand.
“You are barely in time, Ned; we had despaired of reaching you. Leave your valise at the check stand and come uptown with me. I can explain what we hope to do as we go.”
As he promised, so he performed; and by the time they reached the editor’s room at the top of the Plainsman building, Hobart knew all that the judge could tell him. Forsyth welcomed the newcomer heartily, and then Jarvis was introduced.
“Here is a young man whom I have been misjudging from the first,” said the night editor, by way of preface to what the reporter had to tell. “While we have been content to accept one theory, following it blindly to its present desperate conclusion, he has built up and torn down half a dozen, with the result that he is ready to-night to open a most astounding budget of discoveries.—Jarvis, do you begin at the beginning and go over the ground carefully, remembering that Mr. Hobart knows none of the details.”
Jarvis drew up his chair, lighted a fresh cigar, and told his story succinctly and with commendable clarity. Hobart heard it through without comment, but at the close of the narrative he fetched a sigh of relief.
“These mysterious details, with their open doors of possibility, help me out wonderfully,” he said. “As you all know, I had my first news of the tragedy last night, and it was meagre enough. But, from information in my hands—in fact, from a letter which Brant wrote me a short time before the shooting—I had every reason to believe that he had simply avenged himself on his enemy. Indeed, he swore he would do it if the man ever crossed his path again.”
“His enemy?” echoed the judge.